- In this video, we're sharing tips
on increasing watch time
so you can reach your 4,000 hours faster
and be on the road to monetization.
So if it seems like you're consistently putting out videos,
but not getting the watch time that you want,
this video is for you.
(upbeat music)
Hi, TubeBuddies I'm Shelly Nathan,
the Video Manager and Product Expert here at TubeBuddy.
If you're on the road to getting monetized,
then you know that one of the metrics and milestones
that you'll need to hit
is reaching 4,000 hours of watch time in the last 365 days.
That's 240,000 minutes.
That's a lot of minutes,
but today we're gonna break it down
so that you can have some more tips
in getting your videos watched by more people
and get you to that goal faster.
So let's go ahead and get started.
Let's talk video length.
You may think that the longer your videos are
the more chances of people viewing it four more minutes
and getting you monetize.
But this may actually be backfiring on you
if your analytics are showing that people do not enjoy
or finish the video through the completion,
because YouTube is looking at those metrics
at whether or not people are enjoying
the experience of watching your video,
whether or not to serve it up to more people.
So it may actually behoove you to create shorter videos
where people watch longer and have a higher duration
than making a really long video where people click out
only 20% of the way in.
So this may bring up the question,
"Okay, Shelly, how long do my videos need to be?"
And the answer is,
as long as it needs to be to get the point across
and not any longer.
If you're an educational or tutorial style type of channel,
then you'll know that a lot of the time
being able to condense and package up that video
in the shortest amount of time possible
while still being able to complete the project
is still going to be a huge benefit to you
'cause think about the last time you looked at a video
trying to learn something,
you probably looked at the time and said,
"Yeah, I want the shorter video."
Now with what I just said about making your videos
as short and concise as possible,
you might also think, "Okay, Shelly,
so should I make a whole bunch of YouTube shorts?"
Now, one thing that's really important to know
about YouTube shorts is that the subscribers
that you gain from shorts
will count towards your monetization goal of reaching 1000,
but the watch time coming from the YouTube shorts videos,
especially if they're served up in the shorts shelf,
those minutes will not count
towards your monetization 4,000 hours.
Now question of the day,
which do you think is harder to achieve?
Getting to 1000 subscribers
or getting to 4,000 hours of watch time?
Comment down below.
But if you've published a bunch of videos,
then you have some data to look at.
One place that you may wanna go look is in tubebuddy.com
in the retention analyzer report.
This is going to tell you how many people
are still watching your video 30 seconds in, a minute in,
or you can break it out by percentage.
If you're seeing a drastic cutoff
in the types of content where people are watching,
you may want to address that in the types of videos
that you're making or how long the videos are.
When you publish a video, you wanna make sure
that it is going to be seen by the most people.
So one metric that you may really want to look at
is going to be when are your viewers online
and where are the majority of your viewers watching from?
Because if you're based in the United States,
but the majority of your viewers
are coming from let's say Japan,
then it may not serve you well to release a video
where a lot of that time zone
of the people who might be consuming
that video are going to be sleeping.
If you wanna know when the best time to publish is,
TubeBuddy has a tool that can help you
with this exact metric.
It's going to take a look and analyze YouTube data
to know when a lot of your audience is going to be on
and it can help give you information
about a good time to publish
so that more people can see your video.
There are several tools that YouTube has and can provide
that are going to help you with things like retention,
drop off and directing people to new videos.
There are part of the YouTube best practices
upload checklist as well as the TubeBuddy checklists.
If you missed that video about how to use that,
as well as check previous videos
from your opportunity final report.
I'm gonna put a link to that video up here in the card
so you can take a review of that.
So you want to make sure that you're utilizing
all of the tools that TubeBuddy and YouTube have
in place for you, including things like end screens
as well as info cards.
Now, while some people are going to use end screens
and info cards to send people to specific videos
or a website,
we would also encourage you to create playlists
that are going to be grouped in order
of people who have subscribed to your channel.
So you can actually order your playlist
by the videos that have gained you the most subscribers,
and then use that link as your info card and end screen
so instead of sending people to just one video,
you're going to send them to a series of videos
in a similar group of content.
Now we've talked about it before,
but the combination of having a clickable title
as well as a thumbnail,
that gauges interest is so important.
And so if you're not winning the click
and we did a video on this specific subject,
if you wanna take a look at that video,
I'm gonna link that one up here in the cards as well.
So if you have a video where average view duration
is going really well for you,
but the click-through rate is not working for you,
this would be a great time to kick off an AB test
to see if by reinvigorating and creating a new thumbnail,
it can drive more traffic to a video where people once in it
are enjoying it.
Now, of course, it seems obvious
that if someone is going to leave a comment on your video
that you should respond,
but to drive engagement and more watch hours and views,
I would suggest creating a comment or a canned response
that includes a link to your most popular video
or a playlist of videos on a similar group of video topics.
You can also create canned responses
with open-ended questions that engage more conversation.
What was your biggest takeaway?
Or what did you learn?
Or what was your favorite part?
And when people get a notification and respond,
they're coming back to your video and watching it again
and engaging with more of your content.
Now, if you are on the free level of TubeBuddy,
you'll only have one canned response available to you,
but if you're on the pro level or higher,
then you can have as many canned responses as you want.
Now, speaking of comments,
I'd like to put one up on the screen here.
Thank you so much for interacting with our last video,
our community posts,
and if you want your comment to be featured
in the next video,
then make sure you leave a comment on this video.
One feature I love so much inside of the scheduled publish
inside of TubeBuddy, which is available
if you're on the star level or higher,
is going to be the ability to schedule your video
along with the first comment.
So you can actually post a comment
that has a link to another video, a link to a playlist,
a link to a product if you are actually selling something
as an affiliate,
but the ability to leave that first comment on your video
is so powerful.
Because if you publish a video when you might be sleeping,
that video comment is still there directing traffic
to another video or to another playlist.
And I don't wanna go too far down the rabbit hole
of gear is everything on YouTube because it really isn't.
But you wanna make your videos easy for viewers to watch.
That means, can you improve the audio?
Can you improve the lighting?
People will forgive a lot when it comes to video quality,
but you know that when you saw that first windy vlog
and that microphone was going,
and it was just blowing out the sound,
you clicked out really quickly.
You wanna think about what is the best way
to drive the best user and viewer experience possible
with your video?
For most, it's gonna be increasing some lighting
and increasing some audio so that those things
are not distracting from the message
of whatever your video is about.
Now I know that sometimes it may feel
that reaching 4,000 hours may seem like an impossible task,
but I assure you, if you continue to show up,
put out videos, work on these items
that we're talking about,
do those upload best practices
as well as the upload checklist
that we had in the previous video,
you will reach your 4,000 hours
and we will be here to celebrate you
and be so excited for you.
Thank you so much for watching TubeBuddy,
we'll see you in the next one, bye.